Bob Dylan
(Simon & Schuster, 2022)
For starters, the book's cover boasts a striking image of Little Richard, Alis Lesley and Eddie Cochran (Lesley was sometimes called "The Female Elvis"; I thought that title went to Wanda Jackson or Janis Martin), with the promise of great reading ahead.
But Bob Dylan's The Philosophy of Modern Song is a mixed bag. While the song choices are often inspired (from rockabilly, blues, folk, country, pop, rock and soul genres--he also includes some crooners), those selections are both aided and crippled by the commentary within. The elaborate packaging--professional and randomly shot photos, with oversized text and space wasting graphics that Rolling Stone has fallen victim to--cannot hide those shortcomings.
The biggest miscue here is in the numbers: there are 66 performances detailed, from obscure rockabilly artist Jimmy Wages to indigenous poet John Trudell to one of Dylan's earliest heroes, Little Richard (who places twice). Yet while some bemoan that Dylan is stuck in the 20th Century, the real problem is that just four (four!) of the 66 entries are records by female artists; only Cher, Rosemary Clooney, Judy Garland and Nina Simone get into Bob's sphere. Why is The Philosophy of Modern Song a boys club meeting? For someone who probably knows enough about Bessie Smith, Sister Rosetta Tharpe, Sandy Denny and Dusty Springfield (or choose your own bunch) to include one of their superlative records, Dylan has missed the boat.
Stylistically, Dylan's writing mirrors his announcing skills on his Theme Time Radio Hour series, which were overall more concise and meaningful than what turns up in book form. Without the constraints of time (like the new pitch clock in baseball), he has a penchant for long-windedness, with analysis that's provocative for its own sake--insulting, too. Dylan's overbaked comment that Elvis Costello's band the Attractions was "miles ahead" of others from the late '70s is rather snarky; one can only guess which musicians are the butt of his disdain. Similarly, when Dylan opines that the underrated blues harpist-singer Little Walter towered above others at his record label ("of all the artists on Chess, he might have been the only one with real substance"), it's a thinly veiled, nasty putdown of Muddy Waters, Howlin' Wolf and Chuck Berry.
The presentation can be quite funny even with the absence of photo captions--dig the Julie London pic in the Clash chapter. But such pleasures are ripped to pieces when Dylan uses a misogynistic term for a woman's body part that appears in the chapter on Eagles' "Witchy Woman," a questionable song choice in the first place.
Dylan credits his fishing buddy Eddie Gorodetsky--who as Eddie G. has compiled some fabulous record anthologies over the years--for providing input and musical companionship that probably elevated The Philosophy of Modern Song. I'm wondering why nobody in the publishing process knows that it's the Allman Brothers Band and not "the Allman Brothers" who recorded "Midnight Rider," or that Chuck Berry's first hit was spelled "Maybellene" without an "i" to avoid a lawsuit with Maybelline cosmetics.
Philosophy has its moments, as the majority of the photos depicting American culture, record manufacturing and the obsession of collectors (a treat for those of us pushing age seventy) are wonderful, nearly forgotten. And yet, one expects more from one of the most compassionate songwriters ever, one with an inexhaustible knowledge of popular music. Cheers for Bob Dylan's snotty, sarcastic singing when he was 25 or so; at 81, his crankiness doesn't hold up so well. Ultimately, there are too many aspects of The Modern Philosophy of Song that are off putting--to a degree that I find meanspirited.